Volcanic rocks have always been a highly valued material due to their great beauty and to the fact that they can be easily carved and cut by man. This has made them scarce, and its use in modern building has become more expensive, thus turning them into an elitist product that can only be used in luxury constructions. These rocks are also known as igneous or elastic igneous rocks, e.g., rock that is composed of fragmented volcanic products ejected from volcanoes in explosive events.
Soil erosion in Mexico partly due to the exploitation of volcanic rocks in quarries amounted to 718 million tons, having caused an environmental contamination greater than 37 million tons of useless solid residues in the national territory (INEGI, economic and ecological accounts, 2004).
Several plates with the appearance of natural rocks are known, but these are only imitations: when we touch, smell and look at them, the fact that they are not rocks becomes obvious. These plates are generally used in constructions largely made with prefabricated building materials for time and cost saving installation purposes.
In this category there are also aluminum, polystyrene and other material plates with a covering of natural rocks extracted in limited sizes with regard to their weight and the plate that supports them. These rocks were adhered to the plates with synthetic adhesives, so the manufacturing process for making them has a very high cost and their dimensions are limited to the size of the rock from which they were obtained, making the piece and the manufacturing method limited in size and shape.
Natural volcanic rock plates have existed for thousands of years and their most important disadvantages are their weight, difficult transportation and placement. The plates extracted from natural volcanic rocks are usually somewhat fragile when they are handled: vibration or impacts can make them break. Due to this they have to be made thick enough so they can be stronger and resist breakage. When laying them on a wall, these plates usually have a colossal weight that makes it difficult or impossible to install them without causing damage to them or the wall. The wall on which they are laid has to be tough and firm enough to be able to support the weight of the plate. And even then the plate runs the risk of being fractured due to the constant impacts produced when they are laid.
Due to the aforementioned inconveniences, improved rock plates useful for decoration and based on volcanic rock particles are needed, and these as well as formulations and manufacturing processes therefore are now provided by the present invention.